Scrambling Baby

Well, Linaya has mastered crawling. I put her down on one side of her bedroom and before I get to the door she's behind me already. She wants to discover everything around the rooms where she is which includes ripping books, eating papers, (and everything else she finds), chewing on cords, and in general making it difficult to watch her and do ANYTHING else. Luckily she hasn't figured out that it allows her to get away from us, only to us. At which point, she climbs to a stand and grabs at any fingers that she sees.

She wants primarily to walk still. And she's growing fast at that. She chugs across the room, matching paces with Sandin as she follows him. This is a bit hard on my back of course, since she's still so itty bitty. She doesn't even come to my knees, so she gets upset after I stop playing with her.

On top of all this, Linaya has also got another tooth, right top incisor. This means when she isn't using my fingers to walk with she's trying to bite them.

Still she's the cutest little thing, and really good. She's rarely in a foul mood that can't easily be distracted. Even when she gets hurt she is easy to distract. I love her dearly, and I love motherhood.

Skipping the crawl

Recently, Linaya has decided that she would rather not crawl, but is determined instead to walk. This is difficult for her considering that she still hasn't figured out the basics of the process. When holding our fingers it is her practice to take steps as long as her little stride allows. She steps on her toes as well. This makes the entire movement a little spastic. Still she has realized that it still beats crawling since she can only still manage to scoot backward in increments. So now realizing that walking is in fact a superior way to get around, she is working her hardest to get going. This means that she manages to push herself up onto her feet, in what is known in yoga terms as downward facing dog position. At this point she gets stuck, unable to figure out how to straighten without landing on her face. Instead she topples over and then cries in frustration. Mama, the sucker that she is, immediately goes to rescue her poor bug, and Linaya promptly grabs her fingers and scoots of her lap, thus enabling her to walk, which is what she wanted all along.

Now if only she could only figure out how to grab things without losing her balance when letting go of those fingers.

Books

These days I hardly do any reading at all. There are several reasons for this, first being motherhood. Actually it isn't as difficult to get reading done as you would think, Linaya is such a good baby, and she sleeps at least four hours during the day, most of the time. But like I said that is only one of the reasons. The biggest reason recently is that I'm writing. That's right, I'm re-writing my book for the fifth or sixth time. And I've found that when I write, I tend to take on the writing mannerisms of the books I'm into. Sometimes that's good, but most of the time it's bad. Whew, you should have seen what I wrote while I was taking my Dickens class. Ouch.

Despite my excuses and avoidances, there are some books that cross my path that I just have to pick up and read. One of those books I just finished. It's called Faith Among Shadows. I came away from it feeling awed and inspired and very humbled. I won't tell you what it's about, but I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good book.

Feeding the Bug

My sister-in-law, who has a baby just two weeks older than Linaya, thinks I'm crazy. This is due to the fact that I feed Linaya anything we're eating, usually in a big pile in front of her, and let her feed herself. There are reasons for this, first Linaya has been chewing despite lack of teeth for two months now. Secondly, she refuses to let me feed her anymore, usually making a much bigger mess fighting me for control of the spoon or fork than if I just let her feed herself. And of course the biggest reason is ease, I love that I don't have to bend over her for half an hour hurting my back to make sure she's eating all her food. So far she loves food. I have only found one thing that she didn't like. I made an artichoke soup, but to be fair to Linaya, neither Sandin or I liked it either.

Right now as I type she's destroying a muffin. She prefers them whole so she can smash them up as small as she wants but she still manages to eat a good portion. She's even getting good a picking up the tiny crumbs, she just can't quite manage to get a lot of the food into her mouth. Much of it ends up in her lap. But she is so happy at the end of a meal I find I can't take back that control.

Come on, could you take a muffin back away from that happy face?

Teething and mutant binkies

The past few days Linaya has been teething. I hate to complain because Linaya is so very good, but at night she's been having pain in mouth that keeps her awake if not crying constantly. It's harder on me emotionally than it is on her. Any advice to help a teething baby sleep?

As a side track, my Mom got Linaya a new binky for Christmas. Its the same size and shape as her current ones, but it has a ring on the back. Linaya uses it, sometimes, but every time she does it bugs her until she pulls it out and tries to rip the ring off the back. It just isn't her binky.

Blog envy

I don't know why it is, but every time I read Marilyn's blogs I feel inadequate to write in my own. This may be because she manages to say witty things, or philosophical things, or maybe it's because her family is just so gosh darn cute. But ultimately it comes down to one thing. Pictures. Marilyn has a picture with every entry, usually more. I scan through them admiring the quality of the pictures, the lighting, and the general cuteness of her kids and then I look through my scanty choices for photos. Perhaps it's the ADD in me, but I never can remember to take the camera with me to important occasions, or if I do have it, I forget to take pictures.

For example, a year and a half ago, Sandin and I were able to go to Hawaii. I remembered to pack the camera, but then as we went on our little adventures around the island, I forgot again and again to bring the camera with me. It stayed in our suitcase the whole time, until the last day, then suddenly I went Oops! So our Hawaiian memories are limited to about three hours before heading to the airport. And since we only went to an arboretum it's mostly flowers and trees.

Since Linaya's birth I've been trying really hard to remember to take her pictures, but once again, it seems to be limited to down time. I remember on a Monday afternoon when nothing is happening, but I forget to bring it to Christmas Eve or New Years celebrations. Christmas morning we remembered only after all the presents were opened. I feel bad about this, but if any of you wonder at my lack of photo journalism in this blog, now you know why. *Sigh* just one more reason why I wish I had Marilyn's talent.

Baby's first Sushi

For Christmas Sandin got a gift certificate to the local sushi bar. Yum, we took Linaya and she loved it. We put a bit in her mouth and she went, Mmmm! We gave her two pieces, all chopped up and mixed together and she stuffed them both in her mouth as fast as possible. And for those of you out there worried about giving baby raw fish, we didn't. Both the rolls we ordered had well cooked fish in them and no fish with high mercury count.

Pre-eaten sushi rolls. Her place and face were a mess afterward